


Someone Else's Happy Ending

by misshoneywell



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: Adultery, F/M, Modern AU, Tumblr: promptsinpanem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-13
Updated: 2014-09-13
Packaged: 2018-02-17 06:41:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2300135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misshoneywell/pseuds/misshoneywell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I was there to crash the party. A monster, a downer. Unwanted."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Someone Else's Happy Ending

Katniss wore orange to the company Christmas party.

Did she think I wouldn’t notice? Anyone would notice. My husband certainly did. And how could he not?

She was beautiful. Lit from within like a live flame, her olive skin was like liquid warmth against the silk of the second-hand shift dress that she wore like Prada. Of course Peeta was a moth— well. You get the metaphor.

Katniss was  _beautiful_. And my husband told her so. Sort of.

"You look nice," he said casually, dipping a chipped ladle into the punch bowl. "Punch?"

"Thanks," she replied, shooting him a friendly smile. She accepted the cup, and their pinkies touched and lingered together with the barest whisper of a secret.

I watched with a careful expression as he scooped out two more glasses of punch. One for me. One for him.

But the first. That belonged to Katniss.

* * *

"I’ll be home late tonight," he said, kissing the side of my mouth absently before rushing out the door.

* * *

Every third Thursday of the month, the women in my book club discussed their sex lives in great detail over mouthfuls of brownies and margaritas.

I shifted uncomfortably when they turned to me with speculative faces. I clutched my worn copy of  _War and Peace_  and prayed for an actual literary discussion despite the fact that I knew none of them had read the book.

I’m the only one who e _ver_ reads the books.

"What about Peeta?" Cashmere asked with a wicked laugh. "That man is such a babe. I bet he’s wild in the sack."

"Totally wild," I echoed, hiding my burning face behind my hair.

* * *

"I’m tired," he said, gently pulling away when I pressed a kiss to his shoulder.

I stiffened and nodded like a marionette doll pulled by arthritic fingers. I forced out an apology and rolled onto my side. I faced the window and watched the little, silvery slice of a waxing moon as if it held the answers to the world and the key to a secret cure for a failing marriage.

"I’m sorry." His voice was soft in the dark shroud of our bedroom. "It’s just been a long day."

I tried not to count. I desperately tried not to add up the numbers. But there had been eighty-one long days this year.

* * *

I smiled brightly and swung the white take-out bag back and forth as I neared Peeta’s office. His laughter rang out all the way down the hallway. He was _happy_ . I hadn’t heard him sound that robust in  _years_ .

It made sense. He had assured me that things were looking up at work— less stressful. Less demanding. More travel, but extraordinarily better pay. He even agreed to seriously consider that vacation in Maui that—

I stopped as I neared the doorway. Peeta wasn’t alone.

"You’re an idiot," she was saying to my husband, her voice so fond and familiar that it made me want to scream.

"True." His chuckle was like warm honey on a cold day. I felt like a child in a sweet shop with no pocket money.

"Why’d you pick this?" I could practically hear the wrinkle in her pert nose. I had immediate visions of smashing it with my fist, and was shocked and sickened by my own violent thoughts. I’d never even so much as killed a spider. "You know I hate California Rolls."

"Yes, yes." His playful eye roll was palpable. My chest burned. My insides ached. "It’s not authentic enough for Katniss Everdeen."

"I’m choosing tomorrow. But for now…" She made a cute noise like she’s thinking. "I guess I’ll just have to take your Rainbow Rolls."

"Hey!-"

"You  _know_  you only pick it so you can share with-“

I couldn’t bear the banter any longer. I stepped into the doorway and felt as if I were back-lit by flames and darkness. The laughter stopped, the cessation of noise as harsh as a broken needle on a record player. The light died from the room. I was there to crash the party. A monster, a downer. Unwanted.

* * *

He tried to make it up to me that night.

He was sweet. Charming. Cajoling. He made us dinner, hitting all of the contrite notes. Playing the favorites.

Lobster linguine, our favorite red wine breathing on the rack, crusty bread that wasn’t even close to being a part of my diet plan but still my downfall all the same. Oh. And a cream puff pastry in a delicate filo shell, dusted and sparkling with sugar crystals. Fit for royalty.

It all felt like ashes in my mouth as he launched into an explanation.

"We’re just friends." He met my eyes. "She’s a good person."

I didn’t disagree. “She’s a lovely woman.”

"Work has been so lonely," he said, his hand shaking as he sipped his wine. His lips were stained red. "I was dying there."

"Why don’t you quit?" I blurted out. I couldn’t believe how calm I appeared. Inside, I was the Wreck of the Hesperus.

His fork clattered to the plate. “I can’t do that.”

"Why not?"

"Do you want to eat?"

"You can find a new job." His nose flared and he stared down at his plate. "You were begging to quit a year ago."

"I don’t want a new job!" I flinched, and he rubbed his face. "I’m so sorry for shouting. I’m so, sorry." There was a horrible pause. I felt dread creeping up my throat on the back of my delicious linguine dinner. "You deserve better-"

"Stop." I stood up and held out my hand.

He stared at it. I felt diseased until he took it and stood, following me into the bedroom. I methodically undressed. He looked at me as if I were insane.

I felt insane.

"I want you to fuck me."

He stuttered, he tripped over his words. He ran a hand down his face. I laid down on the bed, naked, and spread my legs.

I said, “You’re my husband. I’m your wife.” I couldn’t forget, so neither can he.

I felt monstrous and sick and satisfied as he stripped and knelt and pushed into me, struggling to stay hard. I was humiliated but determined, and he groaned when I reached down and worked him relentlessly until he was stiff and ready again. Then I laid back and took his penance.

When it was over, we rolled over to our opposite sides of the bed.

I wonder if he felt like he had betrayed her.

* * *

I showed up with another take-out bag. I had to know.

Peeta was alone, pale and miserable, and wouldn’t meet my eyes. I saw two unused sets of chopsticks and boxes in the trash. He accepted his lunch quietly. He said he’d be home in time for dinner tonight. No more late nights.

Being a sick, desperate woman in love, I visited Katniss’s office before I left.

I stood in the doorway and stared at her puffy face, her tear-stained eyes. We didn’t speak.

I felt like the other woman as I turned away.

* * *

Peeta’s home every night for weeks. It’s quiet, companionable but utterly lifeless.

"Jeopardy?" he asked dully. "Or Netflix?"

* * *

"I’m sorry," he was saying. His voice carried through the crack in the patio door. But I was also hovering near it, so that helped. "Please, don’t-"

I bit my lip as he sucked in a breath and his voice shook. “Please,  _please_  don’t cry. Don’t cry. I can’t take it.”

Silence.

"I miss you, too." Peeta sounded so anguished, so pained. I felt as if I were watching a favored soap opera. "I wish. I wish- God. Katniss-"

He slid down the glass door and landed on the wooden deck. His blonde head hit against the glass with a soft  _thud_.

I stared as the strands flattened against the door, and reminded myself to give it a thorough cleaning tomorrow. I might have to buy more cleaner.

"I’ll try," he whispered to her. "I’ll— we’ll figure something out."

I backed away to check under the sink and left him to his phone call.

* * *

"I have a business trip," he said to my back. "Two days."

My hands burned under the water as I meticulously scrubbed at a plate. “Fine.”

"Why don’t you use the dishwasher?" His voice was so, so soft. And I felt so, so much like hurting him.

But I don’t have the strength or the words, no fire or cleverness. Just a knack for clean sheets and stain removal.

"I like to do things right the first time."

The kitchen was silent save the rushing of the water down the drain.

I waited until I heard his footsteps fade away before crying into the soapy dishes.

* * *

I laid in bed, restless and heartbroken. I stared at the tacky popcorn ceiling that irritated me so much when we first bought the place, fresh out of college with dreams of the future. This was only ever meant to be our starter home.

Almost a decade later and I still felt like that girl waiting for her start; always feeling as if her husband is waiting on something better.

I ended up on my hands and knees in the closet, searching through old boxes, trying to find proof of our love. A sliver of nostalgia-wrapped romance to remind me that this would all pass, that all the pain was worth it.

I ripped through old art history text books, smiled at a few photos of camping trips with mutual friends and marveled at our younger faces, fingered the rough edge of our graduation program— and there, at the bottom of a box, were his old school yearbooks.

I hesitated. As a child of an abusive parent and a terrible home life, Peeta hated talking about the past, and we seldom spoke of the time before he and I met.

I pulled the books out and flipped through his elementary school years first, and smiled at his kindergarten photo. Same messy blonde curls, bright blue eyes. Chubbier cheeks. My insides thumped as I thought of what his baby would look like. But then my smile faltered and died as my eyes flicked upward toward a familiar name. A familiar face. Intense grey eyes, even as a child. That same fucking braid.

Katniss Everdeen. With a bold, red heart framing her face, the marking childish but confident.

I slammed the book shut.

* * *

Eleven yearbooks later and I’m all cried out.

I wondered how this could hurt so much more than when she had just been some woman at the office. Some woman who gave him what he needed at the right time.

Not a lost childhood love.

 _The one who got away_  was fucking my husband in some hotel. And I’m crying in the closet.

* * *

I was methodically packing his things when my husband came home.

He looked stricken, but not surprised. Guilt and sorrow crept into his watering eyes, and another emotion that I hadn’t hoped to see flashed there as well.

I searched his face for love or desperation (I’d take either), but found none. I kept packing. 

His eyes fell to the pile of yearbooks on the floor, and the sketchbooks that we both knew held an insane, almost psychotic amount of drawings filled with  _years_ worth of renderings of Katniss fucking Everdeen from childhood to puberty and beyond.

"I’m sorry," Peeta whispered, sitting on the bed. His head in his hands. His heart, in her hands. "I do love you-"

"Not like her," I interrupted flatly. "Never like her."

"You’re my best friend." He looked up at me helplessly, his hands held out in supplication. "Do you— do you want to try again?" I decided not to feel offended at the dread in his voice.

I shook my head. “Has it always been her?” He didn’t ask what I meant. “Has she always been between us?”

"Yes." So many emotions in one word.

"I’d like to keep the house," I said conversationally, feeling as if I were dying inside. "Do you have somewhere to go?"

He nodded miserably, his eyes creeping toward his phone. Even now, he was itching to talk to her. I wasn’t mistaking that other emotion now.

So I feigned relief as well.

I spoke of new beginnings, of second chances at happiness. Empty words, empty lies. He objected in half-hearted tones, but in the end, he left with his boxes while I watched in my car down the street. Katniss helped him carry his belongings to her SUV, and she kissed him in broad daylight when he broke down in the passenger seat.

And then they drove away.

I was left with the popcorn ceilings.

* * *

The ink was barely dry on the divorce papers before she became Katniss Mellark.

I couldn’t blame them, really.

They waited thirty years for their happy ending.

* * *

It all worked out for the best. I remarried. Darius is a good man. He hates dishwashers and loves  _War and Peace_ . He takes two sugars in his tea, and he never sleeps with the windows open.

And I saw them, you know. A few years later.

Katniss was wearing orange. Peeta was smiling down at her, his face as radiant as the sun. A chubby baby with blonde curls and grey eyes laughed hysterically in a stroller between them, his little legs kicking happily.

We smiled pleasantly as we passed each other, and then I met my husband for lunch.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Prompts in Panem.


End file.
